Today we’d like to introduce you to James and Fiona Emley.
James and Fiona, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
KameaVR emerged out of the desire to do a creative project with my wife.
I, being a computer science educator, musician, and film composer, decided to set my sights on developing my next project in virtual reality. At the same time, my wife has just come off her hit web series “Doggone It,” was also ready to embark on something new that incorporated mindfulness and the healing arts. After a bit of brainstorming, we decided upon KameaVR – A Virtual Reality Meditation Experience.
Combing our talents was the fun part. First, we began focusing on the music for the meditation rooms. Being inspired by all the sound baths in Los Angeles using harmonic tonalities of crystal bowls, sound generators, and gongs, it became imperative for us to bring the same immersive sound experience into KameaVR. So, we invested in new instruments and started to really have fun. Next, I dove head first into the visual design by learning 3D modeling, coding, and immersive production techniques through the likes of Unity3D, Blender, 3DS Max, and C4D. I availed myself to local production workshops at General Assembly, speaking events at UploadVR, online tutorials through Unity3D, Udemy, Lynda, and of course the unlimited home brewed tutorial streams on YouTube.
My wife has a background in acting, music, and writing. Yet, her passion for living a conscious lifestyle began soon after embarking a road to recovery 18 years prior. During that time she learned to meditate and explore different spiritual healing modalities to help support her nervous system, open her intuition, and live a happy sober life.
In the meditation arena, authenticity is such an important part of the equation, and her extensive knowledge of Kundalini Yoga, Reiki, meditation, and essential oils have been such an important part of the equation. I believe the app wouldn’t be anywhere near as beautiful without her magical touch, and this tends to happen with anything that comes into her world.
THE NAME – KAMEA:
Born and raised on the Big Island of Hawaii, my wife wanted to use a name to honor her homeland. As a result, we took inspiration from her middle name, Kameaalohalani, which means “The one who heaven loves.” Since we were creating a meditation app, it seemed fitting that we should call ourselves KAMEA (The One). After all, as a person continues to meditate, they essentially begin to experience that deep connection of becoming one with “The One.” One source. One mind. One consciousness.
WHERE WE ARE NOW:
Over the past four months, KameaVR has showcased at three different events and has received some incredible feedback from top VR industry leaders. We have partnered with the group, Visual Reality, a wild consortium of Los Angeles technologists, artists, and healers, expressing themselves in the digital realm. Our friends and co-founders, Torkom Ji, Anshul Pendse, and Michael Strauss, are insanely creative, conscientious gentlemen, and we are excited to be amongst those who are pushing the frontier where technology meets mindful artistry.
In the meantime, we have also been approached by two different doctoral candidates doing research in therapeutic technology, who are wanting to use KameaVR in their thesis project. You can now download KameaVR on public forums, such as the HTC Vive website and the Steam video game marketplace.
Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
We can definitely acknowledge that working with a significant other is also a learning process all in itself. My wife has meticulous attention to detail, and there were definitely moments we disagreed. Yet, once the adjustments were made, it almost always came out better and was totally worth it in the end.
But, we would say that our main challenge in creating a startup has probably been time management. As a full-time public school teacher, juggling my daily routines then coming home to learn new coding techniques ’til the wee hours of the night can be exhausting. My wife had the same experience with her work as well.
Another would be marketing. As an independent developer with a new product, it can feel daunting where all our energy and financial resources should go. Luckily, we’ve had some initial interest in the build from VR groups, and my wife and I are currently reaching out to partners that can help with rolling out a strong marketing campaign.
Please tell us about KameaVR.
With the demands of the Digital Age upon us, it is no surprise that people are experiencing higher levels of stress in the body, mind, and nervous system. These stresses can deplete our energy and often leave us feeling “zapped” and burned out.
With KameaVR meditations you can now step away from the grind, replenish your soul, and come back into your day feeling refreshed, rejuvenated, and balanced. Each twenty-minute meditation will guide you on a journey through the seven major energy centers of the body, known as chakras. With the use of color, mantra, affirmations, and sound current, this peaceful experience aims to balance the flow of energy (chi) throughout your body and guide the user towards self-improvement, insight, and regeneration.
What sets KameaVR apart from other meditation apps is its use of multiple modalities to allow the user a particular experience correlating to that specific chakra. A lot of attention was put into the correct synchronization of sound, using subharmonics, binaural beat multi-phasing tones, mantras, transcendent visuals, as well as a warm guiding voice to lead you through a powerful therapeutic experience. Most meditation apps focus around an expansive simulation of traditional, themed settings (i.e., mountains, dojos, oceans, or grassy fields). While these elements are quite esoteric and peaceful, our app goes deeper.
KameaVR can be enjoyed as a standalone virtual reality experience on the HTC Vive and Oculus Go systems, but our vision is to take it a step further and have it be experienced in a fully immersive, therapeutic environment. Therefore, our main goal with KameaVR is to place it in wellness centers such as spas, clinics, and hospitals. We are also interested to work with other therapeutic companies and customize a VR experience for their own wellness programs and business needs. Seriously, the sky’s the limit!
If you had to go back in time and start over, would you have done anything differently?
Right now, there are so many incredible avenues of research and start-up potentials within the VR/AR industry, and it seems that everyone has their own mega disruption idea these days. At the same time, this technology is still in the early phases of rapid, iterative development, so it’s anybody’s guess as to which industry may be affected next.
We personally feel that AR/VR devices have an immense potential to really revolutionize the education and medical industries. Once the technology is accepted into the mainstream as a therapeutic device other than gaming, users will see some incredible changes begin to happen. We personally look forward to the day when anxiety, pain, and depression may all be mitigated digitally without any chemical assistance or dependencies.
Probably the most important lesson we are learning is that one can’t take trends too seriously. Just because a AAA game or application is made by a highly well-known studio with a perfect public release campaign, it doesn’t always guarantee success. Branding is such an important part of the marketing process these days, but we also realize that the public loves to hear a great story with any product that is purchased. We believe that it’s important to gain trust from our audience, and this trust takes time to build through many iterations.
With that, if we had to start over, we would have probably tried to look for financial backing sooner. It would have helped to speed the process of development up and release it faster. Yet, we do believe that sometimes meticulous processes just take time, andweI don’t regret all the hours spent learning about development, troubleshooting, digital marketing, and networking. Virtual reality as a therapeutic and educational resource is still brand new to many people. So, we are trusting the process and believe things will evolve as they are supposed to… right on time.
Pricing:
- STEAM Release – $7.99
- HTC Vive Release – $7.99
Contact Info:
- Website: https://kameavr.com
- Phone: 3108740978
- Email: [email protected]
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kameavr/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/kameavr/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/KameaVr
- Other: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1023710/KameaVR/
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